Pride and Prejudice Themes and Motifs

Pride and Prejudice Themes and MotifsTHEMES
ClassClass is the target of much of the novel’s criticism of society in general. Austen makes it clear that people like Lady Catherine, who are overly invested in their social position, are guilty of judging that a person’s social rights are strictly defined by their class. Other characters, like the stuck-up Mr. Collins and the scheming Caroline, are depicted as thoroughly empty, their opinions and motivations completely defined by the dictates of the class system. Mr. Collins is not a part of the very high class, but driven by pride, he thinks he is. His marriage to Charlotte was his attempt to recover his pride after being rejected by Lizzy. That is what makes him so obnoxious; his focus is always on showing off himself and his situation in life. To contrast them, Austen offers more positive examples in Bingley and the Gardiners. Bingley is someone from the upper class who wears his position lightly and gallantly. The Gardiners represent the honest, generous, and industrious middle class and are examples of how even the middle class can be as educated and refined as the upper class. Austen does seem to respect the class system in a few ways, especially when it operates not as a dividing power in society, but as a force for virtue and decency. Darcy is the primary example of Austen’s ideal high-class gentleman. Though originally he seems to be an arrogant and selfish snob, as the novel progresses it becomes clear that he is capable of change. Eventually, thanks to Elizabeth’s influence and criticism, he combines his natural generosity with the integrity that he considers a crucial attribute of all upper-class people. He befriends the Gardiners and plays a key role in helping the ungrateful Lydia out of her crisis. The marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth shows that class restrictions, while rigid, do not determine one’s character, and that love can overcome all obstacles, including class. Pride

Pride is a constant presence in the characters’ attitudes and treatment of each other, coloring their judgments and leading them to make rash mistakes. Pride blinds Elizabeth and Darcy to their true feelings about each other. Darcy’s pride about his social rank makes him look down on anyone not in his immediate circle. Elizabeth, on the other hand, takes so much pride in her ability to judge others that she refuses to revise her opinion even in the face of clearly contradictory evidence. This is why she despises the good-hearted Darcy for so long, but initially admires the lying Wickam. Yet while Pride and Prejudice implies that no one is ever completely free of pride, it makes it clear that with the proper moral upbringing one may overcome it to lead a life of decency and kindness. In the end, the two lovers are able to overcome their pride by helping each other see their respective blind spots. Darcy sheds his snobbery, while Elizabeth learns not to place too much weight on her own judgments. Prejudice

Prejudice in Pride and Prejudice refers to the tendency of the characters to judge one another based on preconceptions, rather than on who they really are and what they actually do. As the book’s title implies, prejudice goes hand in hand with pride, often leading its characters into making wrong assumptions about motives and behavior. Austen’s gentle way of mocking Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s biases gives the impression that such mistakes could, and indeed do, happen to anyone; that faulting someone else for prejudice is easy while recognizing it in yourself is hard. Prejudice in the novel is presented as a stage in a person’s moral development, something that can be overcome through reason and compassion. Austen only condemns those people who refuse to set aside their prejudices, like the class-obsessed Lady Catherine and the scheming social climber Caroline. Austen’s work offers a powerful illustration of the damaging effects to people and to society that prejudice can inflict. Marriage...

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...ThemesThemes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Love
Pride and Prejudice contains one of the most cherished love stories in English literature: the courtship between Darcy and Elizabeth. As in any good love story, the lovers must elude and overcome numerous stumbling blocks, beginning with the tensions caused by the lovers' own personal qualities. Elizabeth's pride makes her misjudge Darcy on the basis of a poor first impression, while Darcy's prejudice against Elizabeth's poor social standing blinds him, for a time, to her many virtues. (Of course, one could also say that Elizabeth is guilty of prejudice and Darcy of pridethe title cuts both ways.) Austen, meanwhile, poses countless smaller obstacles to the realization of the love between Elizabeth and Darcy, including Lady Catherine's attempt to control her nephew, Miss Bingley's snobbery, Mrs. Bennet's idiocy, and Wickham's deceit. In each case, anxieties about social connections, or the desire for better social connections, interfere with the workings of love. Darcy and Elizabeth's realization of a mutual and tender love seems to imply that Austen views love as something independent of these social forces, as something that can be captured if only an individual is able to escape the warping effects of hierarchical society. Austen does sound some more realist (or,...

...Originally written in the late 1700's, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice satirically depicts the universal ideals in Old Regency England, primarily regarding social class. Austen follows the development of an outspoken middle-class British woman, Elizabeth Bennet, as she encounters and overcomes the many social barriers that separate her from her wealthy upper-class neighbors. Throughout the novel, Lizzie must confront society’s class-consciousness, particularly with her family’s growing relationship with the wellborn Bingleys and their friend, Mr. Darcy. It is clear that the author, Jane Austen, intended Pride and Prejudice to be a parody of the Old English society’s extreme emphasis on the social class structure and marriage that is not based on the heart but instead on convenience.
Although our present-day social class system is more flexible than it was back then, members of the elite, especially celebrities, are still more apt to marry other upper-class citizens, rather than their social inferiors. For example, in today’s society it is the standard for rock stars, actors and models to pursue partners from a comparable social class. Similarly, a marriage between Fitzwilliam Darcy and Anne de Bourgh, daughter of the distinguished Lady Catherine de Bourgh, is expected because both parties are of equally notable lineage and hail from the same prestigious family. The union between the two aristocrats was planned...

...﻿Degree of Analysis (50 Points) Steven Edward Rathgeb
Original Title and Topic (10 Points) March 21st, 2014
Variety of Sentence Starters (10 Points)
Relevant Textual Support (30 Points)
Why it is named Pride and PrejudicePride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is an award winning British Classic. The novel’s themes arguably created one of the best storylines in British Literature. With every book comes controversy; particularly in Pride and Prejudice (P&P) how important are the themes of pride and prejudice to the novel. The theme of Pride is mostly shown through the characters of Lady Catherine, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy while Prejudice is shown best through Caroline Bingley, and more importantly Elizabeth Bennet. With some of these characters changing their ways, Pride and Prejudice ends fantastically with everybody getting what they deserve and two wonderfully happy main characters, creating the ultimate story.
Pride is described as a high or inordinate opinion of one’s own dignity importance, merit, or superiority. The theme of Pride shown by Lady Catherine, although late in the story, is excessive. Lady Catherine is extremely venerable. During the Regency time period in which this book was written,...

...Pride and PrejudiceTheme of Love
Mr. Darcy’s first declaration of love for Elizabeth is a perfect illustration of how love functions in this novel: "You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you [despite your awful family and your socially inferior position]." There are many obstacles on the road to love in Pride and Prejudice, not the least of which are …pride and prejudice. But Jane Austen pens a happy ending, showing us that there’s something about love that enables it to overcome all the pride and prejudice that society throws in its way.
Pride and PrejudiceTheme of Marriage
In the world of Pride and Prejudice, marriage is a necessity (for women at least) – and a good marriage is like winning the lottery. Notice that we didn’t mention the l-word (that would be "love"). Marriage is celebrated in Pride and Prejudice as a goal in and of itself. Part of what makes Elizabeth, the protagonist, such an interesting character is her refusal to view marriage in those terms. Other characters show us alternate reasons for marrying: practicality, infatuation, etc.
Pride and PrejudiceTheme of Society and Class
In Pride and Prejudice Austen satirizes the...

...Major ThemesPride
As said in the words of Mary at the beginning of the novel, "human nature is particularly prone to [pride]" (Volume I, Chapter 5). In the novel, pride prevents the characters from seeing the truth of a situation and from achieving happiness in life. Pride is one of the main barriers that creates an obstacle to Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage. Darcy's pride in his position in society leads him initially to scorn anyone outside of his own social circle. Elizabeth's vanity clouds her judgment, making her prone to think ill of Darcy and to think well of Wickham. In the end, Elizabeth's rebukes of Darcy help him to realize his fault and to change accordingly, as demonstrated in his genuinely friendly treatment of the Gardiners, whom he previously would have scorned because of their low social class. Darcy's letter shows Elizabeth that her judgments were wrong and she realizes that they were based on vanity, not on reason.
PrejudicePride and prejudice are intimately related in the novel. As critic A. Walton Litz comments, "in Pride and Prejudice one cannot equate Darcy with Pride, or Elizabeth with Prejudice; Darcy's pride of place is founded on social prejudice, while Elizabeth's initial prejudice against him is rooted in...

...the theme of identity is what draws the reader in”
Explore the methods by which writers develop the theme of identity in the light of this statement.
In Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, there is a strong sense of identity in certain characters in the novel. Elizabeth has a high understanding of her own views and opinions, which often contrast with those around her “She had always felt that Charlotte’s opinion was not exactly like her own”. However, other characters seem to have inflated self-regard, which causes the other characters to behave differently to them, Lydia shows no remorse for the disgrace and pain she put her family under “But you know married women have never much time for writing. May my sisters write to me. They will have nothing else to do.” In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman deals with self-knowledge in a way that allows the reader to interpret it for themselves, is the narrator lacking self-knowledge or finally receiving it at the end of the novel?
In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen shows Elizabeth grow as a character, away from her intolerant attitude at the beginning of the novel, to her open-minded nature after she discovers the truth about Mr Darcy. Austen often conveys Elizabeth’s thoughts to the reader through the use of free indirect speech. Initially, Elizabeth thought of Darcy to be “having a most forbidding, disagreeable...

...her family in the nineteenth century may be difficult for modern readers to understand. Although the daughters of the middle and upper class could be sent to school, their education consisted more of becoming accomplished. Society could not conceive of a woman entering a profession such as medicine or law and therefore did not offer her a chance to do so. Because of the extremely limited options a woman had in order to earn a living, marriage was essential for financial and social well-being. Therefore, if a woman remained unmarried for the rest of her life, she would remain dependent on her relatives, living with or receiving a small income from her father, brothers or any other relative that could afford to support her.
The central theme of the novel concerns itself with marriage, as indicated in the ironic opening line of the book. Throughout the novel, it is not the man seeking the wife but more so Mrs. Bennet seeking a husband for her older daughters. Mr. Bingley is already being considered by the ladies present. The novel vividly looks at different types of love and marriage. One of the many different types of marriages that Jane Austen explores is one of economic necessity, the one, which Mr. Collins offers Elizabeth, and the one, which Charlotte Lucas falls into.
Mr. Collins' primary objective for attending at Longbourn was to find a woman suitable for marriage and, when hearing that the eldest daughter of the Bennet family, Jane, is being...

...﻿Pride and Prejudice
Question1. Discuss the appropriateness of the title ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and its change from ‘First Impression’.
Pride and Prejudice is a novel about surmounting obstacles and achieving romantic happiness. It was first published as First Impression in the year 1797 and later in 1813 it was revised and republished as Pride and Prejudice. Yet, for Elizabeth and Darcy the protagonist, the challenge lies in the books original title, First Impression. Darcy the proud, picky noble woman’s nephew must break free from his original dismissal of Elizabeth of not handsome enough to tempt him and his class based prejudices against her lack of wealth and family connections. Meanwhile, Elizabeth needs to free herself from the prejudice that Darcy is arrogant and self-satisfied; as a result she later accepts slanderous accusations against him as true. Perhaps, the change in the title was due to the fact that the novel as a whole deals with the idea of pride and prejudice which is not just confined to Elizabeth and Darcy but is true for all the characters. The title is very significant in the development of the text. As the book progresses, the connotation of the tile become more apt, using these three words, Austen has been able to depict the main components of the...